When people first walk through the portals of Nollywood, they have fire in their eyes and carry a vision in their spirit. Without big connections in Nollywood, they are doomed to begin from the bottom as extras no matter how talented they are.
Extras in Nollywood get the most tedious and exhausting filming days on set. There is no guarantee that your faces will appear on the screen of even a guarantee that the will be fed on set.
But a Nollywood extra can’t complain, they hold onto their vision. The treatment they get from actors on set crowns it all and this is where many give up. This is a true tale of Nollywood extras.
Nollywood Extras
Others may forget, but the extras of Nollywood never forget. As far as this set of people go, Nollywood system is messy and reports that come out of it are disturbing. Call them the unknown faces if necessary, but this is the story of how many left the industry as extras. Some ended up as crew members today.
- When night shooting is concluded, sometimes 1 A.M in the middle of the night, extras have to find a place to lay their heads. The film production does not provide accommodation for such situations. But they forget that films can not happen without extras.
- Extras accept to shoot at any location and any condition like in bushes and on itchy grasses or in the pool overnight. They sometimes don’t get paid.
- Extras in Nollywood are preys and they are scared to react to bad treatment. This leaves them in constant fear of being banned from the industry.
- After shooting a crowd scene in ‘Lord of Mountains’, extras were abandoned in the mountainside. There was no kind of transportation to get them to the city.
- They are sometimes not entitled to food or get one meal for a full day’s shooting.
- Costumers hate nothing more than providing clothes for extras they believe are too dirty. Extras get to bring their own costume and makeups.
- For every repeated scene, the extras are the only ones who aren’t allowed to say a word or decide to leave. They will lose their pay.
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